Enterprise software systems receive, generate and store data related to many aspects of a business enterprise. Conventional systems may encapsulate this data within multi-dimensional “cubes” in order to facilitate management and analysis thereof. These structures may include several dimensions and several dimension members per dimension.
Spreadsheet 10 of FIG. 1 displays a projection of a multi-dimensional cube. X-axis 12 of spreadsheet 10 represents members of Time and Responsibility Center dimensions, and Y-axis 14 represents members of Account and Product dimensions. Each of values 16 is associated with one member of each dimension based on its X-Y position.
A user may apply filtering to the displayed dimensions in order to reduce the number of displayed value. Typically, this filtering requires invoking a separate filter dialog which displays all members of each dimension. The user selects desired members and then closes the dialog. This metaphor is time-consuming and insufficiently intuitive.